The supply-laden truck pulled into the dark shipyard, its bright headlights cutting through the mild night. Charlotte stood in the shadows, watching it with an involuntary indifference.
Its brakes screeched as it came to a halt, the old mechanics of the truck shuddering and hissing for a long moment.
Ethan jumped out of the cab, his expression grim. His eyes flickered to Charlotte and a shadow of fear passed across his face. Charlotte closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. She didn't want to know what was worrying him. She didn't think she could take much more.
"This would be so much easier if we had Annakiya," Ethan said, walking towards her. "We need to erase the driver's mind before he leaves here".
Charlotte's sight flickered to the cab of the truck and back to Ethan. She could just see the outline of a man slumped over in the passenger seat. Of course they couldn't allow any loose ends bring the world down upon them. Not now that they had somewhere to hide, somewhere to stave of the enmity of the world for a brief moment.
"I can do it". The words broke from her lips without much thought. She was on autopilot, performing the necessary motions to seem like she was coping.
He looked at her and for a moment she thought he would argue but he just nodded. "I'll get some of the others to unload the supplies. You do what you have to..." he trailed off and frowned his forehead puckering. "Then we need to talk. It's urgent".
Charlotte waited in the shadows as the stronger students were ordered to move the supplies into their makeshift home - a three-story abandoned warehouse overlooking the Potomac river.
They had set up barriers and used different alterations to protect their sanctuary, but they needed supplies. Ethan had seen to that.
Once the truck was empty and the driver was conscious once more, Charlotte climbed into the cab. Her alteration guided him entranced away from their sanctuary. She sat watching the moonlight glance of the sluggish Potomac, a ghost, her hood pulled up over her head.
The driver pulled into the side of the road, just off the highway, the truck shadowed beneath a flyover. He stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and his hands choking the steering wheel. A muscle beneath his eye tremored and his knuckles turned white, but his fear couldn't even tempt her.
She slipped from the cab, closing the door behind her and disappeared into the shadows.
Tweaking the driver's memory had been insanely easy. She overwhelmed his mind, replacing the memory of Ethan's intervention with hallucinations of hijacking. Every time he tried to think about what had happened or why his truck was empty, he could only see an attack by four middle aged men with guns and baseball bats. It was easy to add details, too easy, convincing his adrenaline filled, trembling mind to think he had to drive to escape his captors. She made sure he would not stop until he reached his home town, which according to the licence on his dash was in New Jersey.
It wasn't as neat a job as Annakiya would have achieved. It was sloppy and desperate. But they were desperate. They had to improvise with what they had.
It took her about half an hour to walk back to the shipyard. Her path was lit only by the sliver of moon rising in the sky. The stars seemed dull in the sky as if a thin veil had been drawn across them, drowning the world in inconsolable darkness.
It had been four days, maybe five, since they had fled the hotel.
Charlotte couldn't keep track of the days anymore. Time meant nothing to her. It had become one endless night of waiting for news, or a plan, or some sign that James was okay. She couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. She didn't want to. Anger filled her and gave her the energy she needed. Anger was her sustenance.
YOU ARE READING
Feared
Science Fiction'Play the game, she thought, remembering the only three words that had helped her to survive at Kingston. Only back then she had known the game, she had known what they wanted her to be, what they had wanted her to do - this man was different. She d...
